Nature is decisively seen as separate from human. Most earlier ideas ofnature had included, in an integral way, ideas of human nature. But nownature, increasingly, is ‘out there’, and it’s natural to reshape it to adominant need, without having to consider very deeply what this reshapingmight do to the human and nature.
In our complex dealings with the physical world, we find it very difficult torecognize all the products of our own activities. We recognize some of theproducts, and call other by-products; but slagheap is as real a product asthe coal, just as the river stinking with sewage and detergent is as much ourproduct as the reservoir. The enclosed and fertile land is our product, but soare the waste moors from which the poor cultivators were cleared, to leavewhat can be seen as an empty nature.
Capitalism, of course, has relied on the terms of domination andexploitation; imperialism, in conquest, has similarly seen both men andphysical products as raw material. But it is a measure of how far we have togo that socialists also still talk of the conquest of nature, which in any realterms will always include the conquest, the domination or the exploitationof some men by others. If we alienate the living processes of which we area part, we end, though unequally, by alienating ourselves.
Nature and Nature’s law lay hid in night. God said, let Newton be, and allwas light. - Alexander Pope, Epitaph Intended for Sir Isaac Newton
Now o’er the one half world Nature seems dead. - Macbeth, II, i
In our complex dealings with the physical world, we find it very difficult torecognize all the products of our own activities. We recognize some of theproducts, and call other by-products; but slagheap is as real a product asthe coal, just as the river stinking with sewage and detergent is as much ourproduct as the reservoir. The enclosed and fertile land is our product, but soare the waste moors from which the poor cultivators were cleared, to leavewhat can be seen as an empty nature.
Capitalism, of course, has relied on the terms of domination andexploitation; imperialism, in conquest, has similarly seen both men andphysical products as raw material. But it is a measure of how far we have togo that socialists also still talk of the conquest of nature, which in any realterms will always include the conquest, the domination or the exploitationof some men by others. If we alienate the living processes of which we area part, we end, though unequally, by alienating ourselves.
Nature and Nature’s law lay hid in night. God said, let Newton be, and allwas light. - Alexander Pope, Epitaph Intended for Sir Isaac Newton
Now o’er the one half world Nature seems dead. - Macbeth, II, i
